Customer Reviews

Legacy: A Novel

5 star:		(36)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I don't read many Danielle Steel books because I'm more of a character-first type reader but the plot to this book captured my attention immediately. I've read that the research Steel does for her books takes longer than the actually writing of the book, and this book is actually about a woman researching her past. This book is fascinating and kept me reading far into the night.

Legacy starts out with a woman who works in admissions in a Boston university. She passes up promotions and never asks her boyfriend of 6 years if they're going anywhere. I won't give away any more plot, except to say that if you're not going forward you're going backwards. Life doesn't allow us to stay in one place.

I love books where I learn something, and Legacy teaches plenty. Lots of history, how to research your own genealogy and a lesson on finding your passion. All these lessons are wrapped up in a great story line told by a master story-teller.

What I'm not crazy about in a Steel novel is that her characters are too perfect. She uses the word beautiful to describe one of the main characters as many times as Pulp Fiction dropped the F bomb (okay, maybe I'm exaggerating, Pulp Fiction didn't use it that many times). I prefer characters that have faults(not as many as I have or it wouldn't be believable) and who overcome those faults. Steel's characters overcome circumstances, but being as perfect as they are, how could they not?

But again, that's not why I picked up this book, and while perfect characters, just as perfect people, can become annoying, I was able to overlook their perfection and enjoy a great plot-driven novel.

A totally worthwhile escapism novel and up to Danielle Steel's high standards. The kind of book you can safely buy before getting on an airplane and enjoy during a coast-to-coast ride.

In less than forty-eight hours, Brigitte Nicholson's life is shattered starting with her archeologist boyfriend Ted abruptly dumping her and finishing with Boston University Admissions Office firing her. Stunned with no place to go, Brigitte agrees to assist her mom who is working on a family tree.

Brigitte goes to Salt Lake City to research her ancestry at Family History Library. There she uncovers a strange mystery about her heritage as an ancestor Dakota Sioux princess Wachiwi who apparently traveled to France just before the French Revolution. While there she married a marquis. Wachiwi as the Marquise de Margerac was buried in Brittany rather than the Great Plains. Following clues takes the researcher to Sioux Falls and Paris. In France, Brigitte and Sorbonne Professor Marc Henri meet and are attached to one another. Their encounter and her family project begin to bring back la vivre de joie sprit that Brigitte had lost to complacency.

This is an entertaining tale mostly because of the exciting look at the life of Wachiwi, which is inserted throughout the enjoyable present day story line of Brigitte's research. Fast-paced in two centuries, readers will wonder what lessons Brigitte will take from the stirring life of the Sioux princess as Danielle Steel provides a winner for her fans.

Harriet Klausner

Brigitte works at Boston University in the admissions office and has a boyfriend of six years (Ted). All of a sudden in one week she loses her boyfriend to an Egyptian dig and loses her job to a computer. Brigitte is 38 years old and lost. She visits her mother in New York City and then leaves reluctantly for Salt Lake City to view the archives at the Mormon Family History Library. Her mother has urged her to look for their ancestors from France (the Margeracs). She discovers Wachiwi, a Sioux who ends up married to a marquis in France. The adventure of Wachiwi makes this book special. Not like most of the Danielle Steel books.

This Danielle Steel book is great. I'm not even finished with the book yet, (about 100 pages left to go!), and I can't put it down. Danielle Steel outdid herself with this romantic adventure. I love the heroine Wachiwi, the heroes Jean and Tristan, and when in the present day I sympathized with Brigitte for her losses.
If you love Danielle Steel, buy this book. You will not be sorry. (I was/am so absorbed in this book that when I am away from the novel - I am thinking about the characters in the book. Thank you Danielle Steel!!

This book is definitely one of Danielle Steel's best in quite some time. The interweaving of history with the modern day story is so intriguing it keeps you reading well into the night. I did not want to put this book down. It is a book I will think about for some time to come. GREAT READ.

I have read Danielle Steel books for years. In Legacy, I found a story like none she had written in awhile.
Brigitte Nicholson takes on doing research into her family history for her Mom and ends up discovering a love story in her family history that brings a French aristocrat and a Sioux Indian maiden together across miles of land and ocean to fall in love.
Wachiwi is torn from her Sioux Indian family and makes a journey across the country and then across an ocean losing one love and discovering another love much greater than the first.
This is a Danielle Steel story you will not soon forget.
She has a winner with this one.

This book started out slow but I got swept up with the history of the story which really sets the whole book. The history behind all the chapters if fascinating. After finishing the book, I think that it is one of the best books Steel has written in a long time. It made you want to go and research your family history. Really enjoyed this novel and recommend it.

I have read all of Danielle Steel's book, but was not interested in reading The Legacy. I did not think I could get into it. After searching for something to read, I decided on The Legacy, and was not at all sorry. I loved it and could not put it down. One of her best books yet.

Brigitte Nicholson, an assistant admissions director at BU for eleven years, is happy enough with her life. Her job isn't particularly stimulating but she likes it okay, and she's had a six year relationship with Ted Weiss, an archaeology professor who she expects to marry and have children with eventually. Then overnight everything changes and her world is turned upside down when Ted gets a dig in Egypt that he's coveted for years, but he tells Brigitte he can't take her with him. Then a few days later she loses her job. Shellshocked, she goes to see her mother and, having nothing better to do, agrees to help her with a family genealogy project. She goes to Utah to the famous Mormon Research Library in Salt Lake City and makes an amazing discovery. One of her ancestors was a Dakota Sioux girl named Wachiwi, the daughter of a powerful chief, who somehow traveled to France and married a marquis, a French nobleman. Fascinated, to put it mildly, Brigitte decides to pursue this hint further, and flies to Paris for more research. And there, almost by accident, she runs into Marc Henri, a charming Frenchman who writes historical fiction, and helps her with her project. Soon her life takes a turn for the better as she falls in love with Marc, and comes to know and appreciate Wachiwi, her brave and resourceful long-gone relative. Author Steel cleverly splices the stories of these two women, one a 38-year-old American, not sure of where she's going in life, and Wachiwi, a beautiful Indian princess, who lived centures apart yet shared a common heritage. I found the Indian chapters in the book, describing their customs, particulary interesting.

I have read many Danielle Steel books but this is my least favorite. The text is very repetative, I've picked up the book about five or so times and haven't read more than a couple pages. Maybe I need to get into the middle to see what others have seen. I still like most of her work though!